Interactive Timeline

  • Period: to

    Romanticism

    This was the time period where major literature and artistic movements occurred. From 1800-1890 was the peak for many European countries.
  • Thomas Wedgwood and Humprhy Davy

    Thomas Wedgwood is the first known person to use light sensitive chemicals to capture silhouette images on paper, and the first known to attempt to photograph the image formed in a camera obscura. Wedgwood met Humphry Davy who published his work in London's journal of the Royal Institution. Wedgwood was unable to capture these images without further being affected by light.
  • The First French Revolution

    The First French Revolution is when Napoleon Bonaparte took over, and the monarchy came to an end. It completely changed the social and political views and ideals.
  • Pride and Prejudice

    Jane Austin's Pride and Prejudice is published during this time. This affected the way society viewed certain aspects involving inequality.
  • Nicéphore Niépce

    Nicéphore Niépce developed heliography. This was a technique that created the world's oldest surviving image in nature of the photographic process.
  • Daguerrotype Photography

    Louis-Jacques-Mande Daguerre invented this type of photography and it was primarily used for portraits. This was America's first exposure to photography. This used a copper plate where the image was directly exposed to.
  • Sarah Anne Bright

    Bright created a series of photograms. Six are still known to exist. She was the first woman to create surviving photographic images.
  • Calotype Photography

    William Henry Fox Talbot invented the Calotype photography. This type used a sheet of paper coated in silver chloride. It was exposed to light in a camera obscura. This created the negative image. This shortened the developing time tremendously.
  • Blueprints

    John Herschel invented the first blueprints.
  • Cyanotype Impressions

    The world's first picture book used cyanotype impressions. This was created by Anna Atkins. It is a process that produces a cyan-blue color when exposed to light.
  • First Colored Images

    Edmond Bequereal created the first colored images. They took hours and hours of exposure, and the colors were very light. They would fade as being examined.
  • Realism

    This was a period of time in literature when historical figures wanted to depict the ways of society. It is linked to social science and the growth of industrialism.
  • The Second Empire

    This empire was the regrowth of Paris and the economy in France. They added a lot of newer developments. New laws and constitutions were created.
  • Lightweight Gelatin Dry Plates

    Richard Maddox invented these plates. It is a strip of negative plates with a coat of gelatin emulsion containing crystals on one side of the film. The size of the crystals helped determine the sensitivity, contrast and resolution.
  • Belle Époque

    This period followed the French-Prussian War. During this time period cultural and artistic climates were flourishing. It was considered to be the Golden Age.
  • Dye sensitization

    Hermann Wilhelm Vogel discovered dye sensitization. Blue and violet colors were extremely sensitive already. He discovered the rest were not because of a yellow substance. Vogel ran several experiments and eventually found a way to make red, yellow and green more sensitive. This made photography a lot more useful to scientists as well as the photography world.
  • The Panic of 1873

    This was a financial crisis that triggered the Long Depression. This weakened leadership in several countries in Europe as well as the US.
  • Heat Ripening

    Heat ripening of the gelatin emulsions were discovered, which made shorter snapshot images. Sir John Swan discovered that cooking the emulsions caused more sensitivity, and Charles Bennet included ripening into the process.
  • A Galloping Horse

    Eadweard Muybridge used rapid picture taking to create an animated moving image of a galloping horse. To view this you use a device called zoetrope.
  • The Lightbulb

    Thomas Edison invented the lightbulb. He filed a patent for an electric lamp with a carbon filament.
  • Celluloid Film Base

    This was the first transparent and flexible film to be made. John Carbutt, Hannibal Goodwin and George Eastman discovered it, and it was used in Kodak cameras and made commercially available.
  • The Kodak

    The Kodak was created by George Eastman. This invention created cameras that were cheaper and smaller. To send it in anTheir slogan was "You press the button, we do the rest."
  • Roundhay Garden Scene

    This is thought to be the first ever motion picture created. Louis Le Prince created it. It pictures his family members leisurely around a garden.
  • Reproducing Colors

    Gabriel Lippmann invented a method of reproducing colors using photography based on the Phenomenon of Interference. This earned him a Nobel Prize in Physics.
  • The Panic of 1893

    This was another depression that followed the Long Depression in 1872-1879. It affected every sector of the economy specifically in the US.
  • The Brownie

    Kodak introduced a camera called The Brownie. This introduced snapshots. It was marketed to children, and many soldiers took it to war. Several famous photographs were taken on a brownie.